Reading for Nov 26

This week’s reading focused on history of sense. In Sensing the Past: Seeing, Hearing, Smelling, Tasting, and Touching in History, the historian Mart M. Smith explored historiography of five senses in his five chapters. He uses a lot of scholarly books to constitute historiography of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching from ancient time to present in worldwide perspectives.

In his analysis of five senses, I was intrigued by the fact of touching. Differ from seeing, touching is the sense of invisible and historically tended to ignore. However, during the time of the Enlightenment, sense of touching started to consider important fact of history with perspectives of sex and disease. Smith analyzes that “Men of any rank, however, saw the female body as always open to touch and, therefore, possession.”[i] Since female body considered as male possession, clothing, which wear on female body, shows male power and class. Considering my wedding dresses, which designed with expensive materials and detailed ornament, those dresses not only shows women’s social status, but also her father’s and husband’s social status and power.

When I think about museum exhibitions, those five senses were used well to attract audiences in many cases. Last week, I visited Bacardi rum factory tour in Puerto Rico and consider how the tour became a part of museum exhibition and attraction. As seeing, we see beautifully build building within a factory, which seems not working as factory, and exhibit of history and process of creating Bacardi. During the tour, we hear explanation of the guide who is well trained to entertain audiences, and we can touch many exhibits of factory processes. Also there are exhibition of smell. They exhibit different kinds of rum to show different smells. In the end of tour, they provide rum to taste it. The main purpose of this factory tour is an advertisement of company, but to think about as a part of museum exhibition, it was interesting to see how they stimulate five senses to audiences and get interests from them. In clothing exhibition, those ideas of five senses could helpful to entertain audiences. It is difficult to touch real exhibit, but we can put material examples that can touch and audiences can feel. As we talked about in class, explain captions in audio also help to catch visitors’ interests. Smith explored class and race of American south associated with five senses, but his analysis could be adaptable for all material exhibitions.

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[i] Smith M. Mark, Sensing the Past: Seeing, Hearing, Smelling, Tasting, and Touching in History, (California: University of California Press, 2007), 101.

Reading for Nov 19

   This week’s reading gave me a different perspective toward material culture. The Prosthetic Impulse: From a Posthuman Present to a Biocultural Future,[i] edited by Smith and Morra, explores human body and disability in perspective of technology of prosthetic. This collection of essays analyzes how people constitute their identity with the relationship with their replaced bodies. In Disability, Masculinity, and the Prosthetics of War, 1945 to 2005, David Serlin describes how concepts of disability and prosthetic influenced masculinity and people’s identity over time. Considering prosthetic as not a part of human body, prosthetic experiences change people’s identity creation.

   In that sense, two wedding dresses also could be considered as a part of prosthetic impulse. Brides do not experience replace of their body, but they shape their body with unnatural form with corset and express femininity for their special day. Compare with American soldiers who consider normal body and performance as masculinity, women consider femininity as unnatural shape. Throughout Serlin’s essay, I was wondering her argument of identity construction with the relationships between disability and masculinity could be interesting contrast to consider with femininity identity. Male are complete figure from the birth, so losing their body parts means losing their masculinity and identity. However, as Simone de Beauvoir pointed out in her book, The Second Sex,[ii] women were not perfect and less complete with natural figure, women had to wear corset and high heal to shape their body to express their femininity.

   The argument of posthuman body in this book interestingly expressed different ideas of prosthetic experiences and human identity. However, if the idea of prosthetic impulse could be consider as an expression of unnatural body, women were practicing reshape their body all the time throughout history.

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[i] Smith Marquard and Morra Joanne, edit, The Prosthetic Impulse: From a Posthuman Present to a Biocultural Future, (MA: The MIT Press, 2006).

[ii] Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, (New York: Vintage Books Edition, 1989). 

Reading for Nov 12

   In Blue Jeans: The Art of the Ordinary, Daniel Miller and Sophie Woodward explore sociological aspects of blue jeans and analyze personal and cultural relationships with blue jeans through interviews in England. In their early chapters, they discuss personal relationships with blue jeans. They interviewed people and asked their experiences of blue jeans. It is interesting to focus on personal histories of blue jeans and connected to social experiences. They interview a woman, who calls Susan, and explore that she had different connections with blue jeans in each stage of her life. When she was young and went out for fun, she preferred to wear skirt, but after she got married, she always wore jeans. It was her personal history, but the relationships between her and blue jeans were not entirely personal. Her decisions to wear jeans were influenced by social and cultural environments surrounding her. Authors talk about conformity of blue jeans in other chapter. They said “the need to feel comfortable, in the sense of appropriate, under the gaze of others within a public situation.”[i] Although jeans sometimes uncomfortable to wear depend on weather and shape, they describe conformity in physical, social, and personal perspectives. When I think about two wedding dresses from 1830s and 1840s, those dresses needed corset to wear and used heavy materials. Although wearing dresses must be uncomfortable from perspective of modern fashion, people might be comfortable to wear those because of social appreciation at that time.

   Miller and Woodward also discuss about jeans and women’s bodies. They said “Jeans are both the measure of her body and sometimes even the reward for getting her body shape right.” [ii]Through their interviews, they found most women tend not to wear jeans if they gain certain amount of weight. If they are slim enough, they consider it is appropriate to wear jeans. In some part, jeans are for ordinal and comfortable wears, but in certain brands and shapes, they represent ideal women’s bodies unconsciously. Skinny jeans remind me my dresses and corset. Both of them are tight and squeeze women’s body to create ideal shape. On the other side, people who can fit and wear those fancy clothing feel comfortable because of appropriation from social gaze. As authors mention that “Comfortable, meaning that at least from the point of view of subjective experience there is a good fit with the situation,“ [iii]ambivalent conformity exist together.

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[i] Miller Daniel, Woodward Sophie, Blue Jeans: The Art of the Ordinary (CA: University of California Press, 2012), 82.

[ii] Ibid, 27.

[iii] Ibid, 73.

Object Exercise 4

[Dress of 1837]

1.     This light ivory striped silk dress with multicolored flower needle works was worn at wedding in 1837. Sleeves and tight tops express the latest fashion of 1830s. Long shirring, “ham-string” shaped sleeves were fashion in 1830s. Small tight tops were also popular. Compare to the volume of the bottoms, tops are very small and waist is only 24 inches.

[Dress of 1845]

1.     This ivory colored beautiful silk dress was worn at wedding in 1845. Significance of this dress is a lot of fringes. In 1840s, the trends of dresses are short sleeves and volume skirts. On the bottom of the skirt, there are two lines of ivory colored fringes. This is unusual for wedding dresses, but those fringes make a skirt bigger and fashion.

[Comments]

These captions express details of the dress and materials. Those captions did not focus on historical and cultural background of people, but more explained fashion and trend of 1830s and 1840s. Visitors can learn what the latest fashions were at that time and can compare differences of trends between 1830s and 1840s. Also descriptions of materials and designs express details of dresses.  

[Dress of 1837]

2.     This dress was worn in Appleton’s wedding in 1837. Appleton was one of the famous families, so the woman who wore the dress at their wedding was in a certain status. This dress features the latest trends of long shirring sleeves. This latest fashion of silk detailed dress express owner’s higher position in society.

[Dress of 1845]

2.  This 1845 wedding dress was donated by Samuel K. Reeves. Reeves family is one of the prestigious families with a long history. A white wedding dress was a status of elite in 1840s. This dress has numbers of back buttons, which indicates bride needed helper to wear the dress. This white, silk, detailed dress was a symbol of high status.

[Comment]

In those captions, I focused on family background and their status in society at that time. Clothing express people’s class and status, so visitors can learn how those dresses worked as a status symbol in 1830s and 1840s. I also assume that displaying beautiful dresses and explaining owners of rich families help visitors to imagine invisible working class fashion. Emphasizing dresses as status symbols, people can imagine existence of dresses and clothes for working class people.

[Dress of 1837] [Dress of 1845]

3.  Those dresses of 1837 and 1845 were the style of sentimental dress. Rise of middle class culture created cult of womanhood and sentimental mood from mid-1830s to 1840s. Sentimental women were less active and simple in style to embrace the domestic virtue of women. The style of dress expressed women’s position in society.

[Comment]

This caption explains relationship between dresses and women. Since fashion strongly connected to women’s social and cultural situations, it is interesting to know how social expectation to women reflected in fashion. I hope I can use this caption 3 for express both two dresses, and also use caption 2 for individual expressions.